We’ve
now spent several weeks in Florida and it’s been a busy time. Being from California, it’s been a steep
learning curve. Florida is really different. And it’s not just the people.

We are rapidly learning about living in and
traveling in a motorhome. In so
many ways, it was easier on the bike.
We could turn on a dime, we got a zillion miles to the gallon, and we
loved the freedom to instantly change our minds and spin off in a new
direction. Motorhomes are more
deliberate in their movements, even one that’s only 26 feet long. They have poor fuel economy. And you never, ever enter a parking lot
without establishing your exit strategy first. But, they carry their own food and bed (and
bathroom!), they have a furnace, and – best of all, in a motorhome you can boondock.

So
what’s boondocking you say? We
Americans have a wonderful way of converting nouns to verbs. When I was a teenager (oh, so long ago)
the boondocks were way down at the end of the road. To us, it stood for where we lived, No-Wheresville. These days, boondocking means
dry-camping, or parking your RV wherever you want, without needing electricity,
water, or a sewer hookup. It
implies you don’t need to stay in actual campgrounds, that you are free as a
bird and totally self-contained.

Boondocking
is wonderful. It is, however, a
challenge at times. We are
learning how to solve problems and to enjoy an evening with flashlights when
the batteries in the coach suddenly tell you they are low. Boondocking is definitely for us, we
love it. It reflects our feelings
about not intruding on the environment, about looking into more solar panels so
we can stay out longer, about being closer to our original ideas of tent-camping.

Spanish
moss is pretty much everywhere; it’s pretty cool stuff. It hangs from all kinds of trees. If memory serves, it’s a parasite, just
like mistletoe. But this is lovely
and wispy; grey in color and very hang-y.
If you pick it up and look closely, it looks a lot like sage; it has
long, thin, segmented strands.
Prettiest, I think, hanging from the oak trees. Oak trees you say? How can there be oak trees in
Florida? You would be amazed; so
far, the only palm trees I’ve seen in northern Florida are the ones planted
beside the freeways. They are all
further south; the entire northern part of the state is wooded, mostly filled
with pines of two varieties -- white and loblolly -- both grown for harvesting. There are huge tree farms everywhere. The pines have a wonderful aroma that
is very sweet right now. The land
that is clear is being used for cattle mostly, with hay and some cotton and
other crops. We’ve seen plenty of
citrus trees, too, of course.

The
fruit at the stands has been wonderful, and the roadside stops are everywhere
as soon as you get off the interstate.
The citrus varieties are joined by cantaloupes and watermelons and --
even more delightful -- fresh strawberries. We are swimming in fruit. I cannot resist stopping at the stands and buying ever more
varieties of the beauty on offer.

We
took a week and headed up toward the dreaded Orlando and Disney World. And we even survived for two whole
days. We actually did have fun,
because we always have fun.

Further
afield, we’ve had a delightful, if quick, trip to Alabama and back. Rick advertised the tent trailer for
sale, and very quickly found a buyer.
But he lives in Kansas City, Missouri. So what to do?
You meet in the middle. We
met him in Birmingham and made the exchange. He was a delightful fellow, and all went very smoothly.

On
the way, we spent a night in Eufala, Alabama, a smallish town on the
Chattahoochee River. It boasts one
of the largest collections of antebellum and late 19th century homes
in the South. It was great riding
around and seeing them in the morning before we left. One disappointment:
we had assumed that with such a charming small town environment, there
would be a charming café for breakfast.
No such luck. We wandered all
over creation, and finally ended up eating at the local Waffle House. It was totally full of the locals who
also had no other place to have their breakfast! Have you ever eaten at a
Waffle House? The food is okay
(just), but they are quite small and dingy and make no attempt to have a
smoke-free area. Gasp! The hospitality was nice, however, and
the waitresses were charming.

This
trip up through Alabama also included time spent on the Jefferson Davis
Highway, the Jim Nabors Highway, the Hank Williams Musical Memory Highway, and
the Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway.
What a combination! That’s
what I like about the South… Oh,
and we came across the Rosa L. Parks Avenue in a neighborhood outside
Montgomery. History abounds!

My
biggest treat was my first piece of sweet potato pie; it was truly yummy. And Rick got to go see the largest
motorcycle museum in North America (at least) in Birmingham. I enjoyed it very much, too. To say nothing of going through
Sylvester, Georgia, the peanut capital of the world. We liked southern Georgia a lot, and want to visit it more
completely another time.

Returning
to Florida, we drifted down to Port Charlotte, near the Gulf. The place where we stayed had a canal
with a sign to watch out for the alligators. We didn’t see any, though. The sign said not to feed them because when you stopped,
they would come looking for the food they expected from you.

We’ve
now spent a couple of killer days dry-camping in the Everglades, and we wished
we had stayed longer.
The Everglades are swell.
Zillions of birds close to you and not caring; alligators everywhere
(they certainly cared, though!).
We walked the Anhinga Trail; if you are ever in the Everglades, you
truly must take the time for this walk along one of the waterways. It was late in the day, and the fish
were feeding on the bugs, the birds were feeding on the fish, and the
alligators were after both. We’ll
be back. The anhinga is a
particularly spectacular bird that is very common in the area.

Upon
leaving the Everglades, we moved through Tampa, where we spent a couple of days
getting some final work done on both the coach and trailer we’d bought for
hauling the bike, and then up into central Florida north of Orlando. It’s lake country, full of small towns,
and we are quite pleased to be here.
Florida is so flat, Rick has decided FL stands for flat. And the water table is very high, of
course.

Latest
oddity seen in the grocery store: pork brains in milk gravy.

It’s
spring training in Florida. We
went to Opening Day, in Lakeland.
We saw the Pittsburgh Pirates vs. the Detroit Tigers. It was pretty hokey, but we had a good
time. Surprisingly expensive; we
spent $40 between parking, tickets, and food. We’ve been to Giants games for less. No we haven’t, says Rick. Oh, well.

From
spring training we went on up to Daytona Beach, for bike week. Such chaos! We spent several days going to bike races, looking at
accessories, hanging out with some California friends, and watching the
hoopla. I’m not sure what the
point is, but it was fun to see.

And
then we went to California. Not
our brightest move, but we did accomplish getting the motorhome registered
there, and we picked up our cats. Mostly, the idea of traveling cross country in the motorhome just sounded neat.

Traveling
west, we enjoyed spring in the Deep South, with dogwood, redbud and azaleas
everywhere. Everything was green
and pretty. People were fishing
off every pier, roadside water access, and bayou. Fresh crayfish were available on the side of the road and
fresh shrimp (along with the boiled peanuts) on sale at every gas station. In Louisiana, along the road we
saw signs for Cypress Knee Santas.
I can hardly wait. We
traveled the Sid Martin Memorial Freeway, Claude Pepper Memorial Highway,
Lawton Chiles Memorial Highway, and the Henry W. Bostick Highway, Who ARE these
people?

We
also spent some time in Georgia, visiting the Andersonville Civil War site and
POW Museum (which had a very strong impact on both of us; it was very
powerful), and the Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, along the Chattahootchee
River (I just love the names of the rivers in the South). Then on through more of Alabama,
Mississippi, and Louisiana, cutting across the middle parts of each of those
states. We did have the chance to
travel for a short ways along the Natchez Trace, which is quite lovely. We’ll do more of that again.

We
spent a night in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and wandered the lovely old homes the
next morning before leaving. At
Vicksburg there is an expansive National Park and Cemetery showing the battle
for control of the town, which was achieved by Grant and Sherman after a 46-day
siege. We have really been
enjoying touring the battle sites and monuments, and the story is always well
told. Until we went to the naval
museum in Columbus we had no idea how involved the navy was in that conflict.

We decided to return to California for several reasons;
mostly because we felt we needed to register the motorhome there – probably a
mistake as things turned out. In
as short a time as possible we accomplished our goals, and as a bonus Kathy
sprained her ankle. Not such a
great visit, although one bright spot was that we decided to pick up our cats,
Agnes & Jeremy. We scooped
them up and got out of there as quickly as we could, the two of them
complaining all the way. (They
never really did adapt to being in a motorhome, but we wanted them with us.)

The East Coast was where we wanted to be, as soon
as possible. Since it was now
April, we didn’t have to stay on I-10 all the way across, and wandered through
northern Nevada, strikingly beautiful this time of year, across the deserts of
Utah, and then into the Colorado Rockies.
We crossed by way of Monarch Pass (our favorite), and dropped down onto
the Plains at Pueblo.

Eastern
Colorado was pretty dreary, after those lovely snowcapped peaks. But there sure are plenty of people
living there, so they must think it’s just fine. The most distinctive feature we saw in eastern Colorado was
that the telephone poles are shorter on the left side of the road. Then in Kansas, the short poles are on
the right side of the road. (“Buy
short,” the stockbroker said.)

A
formula for you: one water tower
plus one grain elevator = one small mid-western town. We saw zillions of them. But all the way through the mid-West, the dogwood and
azaleas were in bloom in the towns and along the roads, and the further east
you get, the greener it is.
Missouri was coming into bloom, and by then you are back in the land of
the billboards claiming VASECTOMY REVERSAL SERVICES, 1-800-whatever, so who
could ask for anything more! We
traveled on the Robert B Docking Memorial Highway, the Duncan Hines Highway (in
Kentucky), the Major Mark C. Dodd Memorial Highway, and then, in North
Carolina, the Sam Hunt Freeway and the John Motley Morehead III Freeway. Such a country we live in!

Chetopa,
Kansas says they are the Catfish Capital of the Country, although we’ve seen that
claim made several times before, so who knows; and there we also found a store
called The Wizard of Odds – over 35,000 items for sale. Tried so hard to get Rick to stop, but
not a chance. In southern
Missouri, going through a Mennonite area, we were intrigued to see that the
highway we were on had a grassy median down the middle, and down the middle of
it was a gravel path for horse-drawn carts to ride. Clearly marked “Not for Autos” -- pretty cool, I thought.

Pretty
un-cool was the path we had inadvertently chosen to get over the Mississippi
River where it divides Missouri and Kentucky. We crossed it at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio
Rivers. (This is the place where Lewis and Clark camped, by the way, at Fort
Defiance.) As it turns out, to get
between those two states, you cross each of the rivers separately, on very old,
very narrow, very high bridges. I
closed my eyes, I held my breath, I took a gulp, and Rick steered very
carefully and gently and got us across.
We had just finished going over the second bridge when here came this
humungous truck; we were amazingly lucky!

But
Kentucky is gorgeous and lush, one of our favorite states. We went through Paducah and Pulaski
Counties, then, east of there, we traveled a stretch through the Daniel Boone
National Forest, which was lovely and cool. We do indeed like Kentucky. One cool sign, along a stretch of freeway that was torn up
for improvements: “Whoa, Baby, Whoa; Leave the Racing to Horses.”

So
now we are back in North Carolina, a beautiful, tree-filled state. We were last in Raleigh in 1998 and are
delighted to be back. This is a
wonderful area to visit, full of life and cultural opportunities. Raleigh is high on our list of places
where we’d like to live. There is
something for everyone here, even a couple of local baseball teams, the
Carolina Mudhens and the Durham Bulls (think Kevin Costner in Bull Durham).

Leaving
Raleigh, we decided to stop for a few days at a campground beside a lovely lake
in the area. We were ready to slow
down. Up until now, retirement has
meant hurrying, scurrying back and forth, keeping up a pace almost as fast as
that we had maintained when working (… ourselves to death). We’ve made three trips back and forth
across the country in less than five months. We’ve put just under 22,000 (gulp) miles on the two
odometers so far. There have been
good reasons for all this; there always are. But we found ourselves establishing deadlines, goals,
expectations in the same old patterns.
But no more. Our new motto? Slow Down, Relax, Enjoy
Today. We may stay in North
Carolina all summer!